Chapter Five
Saoirse
Shite. If I’d known that we were going on a trip with BroKen, I would have stayed behind. I knew that he was performing at the festival, but it would be easy enough to avoid him.
But no. We were his guests.
I’d thought Dusty was just some rich-boy friend of Carlos’. After all, in Fiona’s friend-circles, someone could absolutely organize a trip like this.
However, that annoying musician had interrupted a ridiculous number of my ops in the past few years. At this point it felt intentional.
Only it couldn’t be.
I’d had my brother, who was a fixer, and my hacker cousins, look into it multiple times. Any ops I went on for the Company were airtight.
Order ops… well… they could be a little less airtight.
But given I was a delta, I never officially made mission rosters for anything by the Order of the Black Dahlia–the omega assassin society Fiona belonged to.
I was just Fiona’s support delta. Which was fine.
Given deltas were often used as security, me being with her never garnered much notice.
Since it wasn’t some sort of leak, he was finding me by sheer luck. He was always so happy about it. Sometimes he even had the audacity to try to find me and reach out to me.
Sure, he was nice to look at, and seemed sweet in a puppy-dog way. But he was good for a fuck and that was it. That’s all alphas were good for anyway. Not a coffee. Not for texting late-night memes to. Certainly not for a date. No. Only fucking. And not regularly, so they didn’t get ideas.
Alphas tended to look down on deltas anyway. Omegas didn’t. We made them feel safe in a different way than alphas, which was why the Omega Center was the biggest employer of deltas outside the military.
I was in the lounge, alone, pretending to sleep. But I could hear them. Him. How many days was this trip again? I was probably the only German-speaker in the group, too. Though there’d be plenty of French, Italian, and English.
Even though Fiona told me not to, I should have background-checked them.
I texted my cousin to run one on him and Hale.
While I didn’t recognize the cowboy, you never knew.
Also, he looked at Fiona like he wanted to lick her.
I should probably find out what kind of person he was. Especially since he was an alpha.
Carlos wasn’t a bad guy. He had a job he liked, made Fiona happy, and wasn’t an arsehole. So, I didn’t mind him much, or often. Honestly, he was more refreshing than annoying.
Clearly, Carlos was arse-over-teakettle in love with Fiona. He also showed her a lot of care. Him taking things slow, while it might frustrate Fiona’s omega sensibilities, told me that he thought there might be a serious something there.
Him as a permanent part of our life? It could work. Even if it meant occasionally seeing BroKen. He was correct, I thought his name was Ken since he introduced himself to me as BroKen. I mean that guy was on the verge of being huge. He wouldn’t be around much.
One thing I liked about Carlos was that he took our job in stride and never made any comments about her leaving it behind when she had kids. Okay, Fiona wanted to, but that was her choice–not some dumbarse alphahole.
At the same time, Carlos wasn’t an alpha. Neither was I.
Sure, I knew she loved me. Still, there could come a time when she decided she really wanted that pack of rich, connected alphas her fathers so desperately wanted for her. A pack that would probably have no use for a delta… or a kappa.
I could survive having my heart broken. But I wasn’t sure that Carlos could. There was a really tender and sensitive person under all that chaos.
Also, there was the small fact that he was a professional athlete and on a kid’s show… while we were assassins. If something ever happened and we ended up in the media, his career would be over.
Music played. Were they singing? Yes, yes they were. Christmas songs. While I didn’t mind a simple tree, a cozy morning with presents and cocoa, and a nice roast for supper, like I had at my grandparents’ house growing up, I really wasn’t into the music, commercialism, or matching pajamas.
Fiona loved Christmas. Most omegas did. Omegas really loved the coziness–baking cookies, decorating, throwing parties, making everyone wear matching pajamas while watching holiday movies in front of the fire.
The scent of peppermint candy tickled my nose, and I felt Fiona flop on top of me, something I referred to as a Fiona Blanket.
Keeping my eyes closed, I wrapped my arms around her. She smelled of chocolate.
“I’m not feeling like karaoke. We’ll be having lunch soon, then we’ll be getting ready to land.” She snuggled into me.
We were on an ultra-jet, so the flight was much shorter. Also, we were going directly to a private airport that was closer to the ski resort, rather than a major one.
“So… you and BroKen? What?” She laughed softly.
I pulled down the eye mask that had been with the blanket on the seat and looked at her. “Regrettable.”
“He’s that bad in bed.” Her eyes gleamed.
“Oh, he’s fine in bed. It’s once he starts talking. If he never talked I could stand him.” I trapped her with my arms.
Oh, how I loved the feel of her body on mine. It was grounding, keeping me to the here and now. In our business that’s all we had.
“Shite, Christmas with BroKen.” I shook my head.
“He seems to like you.” Her voice went sing-song.
I rolled my eyes. “He seems to think our running into each other is fate.”
It wasn’t. It was him being an arse–and extremely bad luck on my part.
“He has a nice arse. And that chest.” She waggled her eyebrows.
“He needs to put a fucking shirt on,” I grumbled.
“If you don’t want his attention, punch him and move on like usual. It won’t be weird. I feel like a guy like him knows what no means,” she told me. “I can also punch him for you. You’ve run interference for me more times than I can count. I’m happy to do so for you.”
There’d been plenty of times I’d punched an alpha in the face because he wouldn’t listen when she said no. The idea of her doing the same warmed my heart. Fiona had a wicked punch, too.
I kissed her. “Thank you, Mo Stóirín. I’ll handle it. He’s harmless. I’m just cranky because of how little sleep we got.”
“Okay. I’ll step in if you need me to.” Her voice grew sleepy.
Sure, he was handsome and muscular–and a great fuck for a man. But he was also an alpha.
A kind and sweet one who remembered things about me.
Fiona needed sweet. But me? No. Sweet wasn’t for people like me.
Also, I needed someone serious and dependable. An adult. A shirtless musician, whose entire brand was being ridiculous, wasn’t what I needed. No matter how hot or nice he was.
No. Not at all.